TECHNOLOGY VISION 2016

Platform Economy

Ecosystems are the new bedrock of digital.

Overview

The Platform Economy:
innovation from the outside-in

Industry leaders are unleashing technology’s power by developing new technology platforms. But more than that, it’s the platform-based business models and strategies they enable that are driving the most profound global macroeconomic change since the industrial revolution. In the digital economy, platform ecosystems are nothing less than the foundation for new value creation.

Tech companies and digital-born organizations (DBOs) like Amazon, Google, and Alibaba have long understood the power of digital technologies. But look a little closer. Many of their most ground-breaking products and services are based on platforms. DBOs’ success rests on two key elements: the technology platforms they’ve built to support their businesses, and the business models these platforms enable. These platform-based business models fundamentally change how they operate.

81% of executives say platform-based business models will be core to their growth strategy within three years.

VALUES THROUGH PLATFORMS

Platform plays take prominence

What makes these models special? They create value externally with digital partners and communities of users. In these new configurations, the platform is the business model. It opens entirely new paths to growth. Far from being untested, these new models are already enabling DBOs to dominate.

Platform companies represent $2.6 trillion in market capitalization worldwide. How? Through the value-creating power of their platform ecosystems and digital assets. Within five years, a core component of corporate valuations and capital markets will be based on platform ecosystems and digital assets.

PHILIPS HEALTH

It’s no longer just about tech and digital-born organizations. Digital leaders across all industries are seizing this new opportunity for growth and capital rewards.

Many are accelerating their uptake of digital technologies and cloud foundations as the crucial first step to break into the platform world.

Medical equipment maker Philips Health is one of them. The company’s placing a big strategic technology bet on a platform business model by launching the Philips Healthsuite platform with three different cloud partners: Salesforce.com, Amazon AWS IoT, and Alibaba Cloud.

Philips has a bold vision: to reinvent healthcare. With its three cloud partners, it will be able to rapidly scale up to hundreds of millions of patients, devices, and sensors – using endless flows of data to tackle the biggest challenges facing the industry, from the hospital to the home.

What next? Responding to each trend requires setting in motion immediate and longer-term actions and plans. Read our recommendations here.

100-day plan

Over the next 100 days, develop a comprehensive strategy to establish the foundation for your platform business model and ecosystem.

365-day plan

Over the next year, leadership should have achieved comprehensive understanding of the new rules of business, developed a platform business model strategy, and started to test it with the launch of a small pilot program.

100-day plan

Over the next 100 days, develop a comprehensive strategy to establish the foundation for your platform business model and ecosystem.

365-day plan

Over the next year, leadership should have achieved comprehensive understanding of the new rules of business, developed a platform business model strategy, and started to test it with the launch of a small pilot program.

MOVING FORWARD

NEXT:

Predictable Disruption

Every business now understands the transformational power of digital. What few, though, have grasped is quite how dramatic and continuous the changes arising from new platform-based ecosystems will be.

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